Rant: Why doesn’t Sony Ericsson bring their JAP models to the EU and USA?
By Stefan Constantinescu on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 10:58 AM PST In Japan, Sony Ericsson
The fight for dominating the heart’s of mobile phone fanatics is a battle that drives the industry forward faster and faster each and every calendar year. We, the people crazy enough to buy a flagship devive twice a year, sometimes even a few midrange products to match our outfits, are walking advertisements for companies like Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Samsung, LG and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). When we sit down and place our devices on a table for all to see we are becoming marketeers. When we browse the internet while commuting or watch videos or make a phone call, we are telling the world a lot about who we are.
Nokia has been the top dog for quite some time with Sony Ericsson climbing fast. The conversations I’ve had with people in the US lead you to believe that the fight for supremacy is between Apple and Nokia. Talk to people in Europe, the Middle East, some parts of Asia and South America and you begin to realize that Sony Ericsson is Nokia’s number 1 competitor, not the west coast fruit.
When I was living in Helsinki there were more Sony Ericsson advertismenets than there were for Nokia; their message was be different from everyone else in town. Each time I visit London I’m flooded with Walkman ads, they understand people want to listen to music, constantly, to rid themselves of their outside enviroment. Spain, granted I went there for 3GSM, was owned by the Korean players Samsung and LG who wanted to attract style consious consumers.
Coming back to Sony Ericsson, they are not an incomponent company, they’re quite capable of being number 1 in the mid range and high end market, but it doesn’t feel like they’re hungry enough to be top dog. Here are some models they sell in Japan, but have yet to release anywhere else in the world:
The SO905iCS has a 5.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, 3x optical zoom, face detection and a technology that waits until the person you’re trying to capture smiles before actually snapping the picture. It has a 2.7 inch screen that displays 256k colors at 480×864 resolution. It’s a bit big at 113 x 50 x 24 mm, but compare that to the Nokia N95 8GB which stands at 99 x 53 x 21 and you’re not that much larger than the Finnish flagship.
The SO905i is a video centric device that has that same lovely resolution, but this time at 3 inches and 16 million colors. It’s smaller at 110 x 49 x 19.7 mm and it has a 3.2 megapixel camera.
Their are plenty more models here, but I’m coming back to the point that Sony Ericsson is a company who can dominate Nokia in Europe, but they simpily choose not to. Those 2 devices I highlighted came out in November of last year, yet here in Europe (Americans import European phones) we’re waiting for the inferior speced C902 and G900 to come out.
Why? Think our wallets aren’t deep enough to buy something that will probably be 800+ Euros unlocked? Try me.
Well what i have understood is that menus are really confusing on those, but yeah i wouldnt mind to own any of those especially that upper 5.1mpx phone.
But imo only thing that makes those Japanese phones uber are those screens and if any i would like to see much much more of them here in Europe with +500 euro phones.
Btw where are you living now days Stefan?
Tampere!
The only thing I want it the hardward the have. The software on those phone are crap! I want an SO905I with s60 on it.
Whereas you and me and other mobile enthusiasts might want this to happen and pretty soon.
Europe doesn’t have the demand for such high spec handsets. Asia is a market that does. They are on the frontier for technology and will remain until the Europeans get their thumbs out.
With all the N95’s you and I have both seen in London and how advanced Italy is in terms of mobile television penetration … I think Europeans are ready.
The EU is getting there I agree, but the masses nor the the framework the technology isn’t. London still struggles to get anywhere near 16Mb internet connection. Only recently have the big 4 operators rolled out 3.5G
The public may be ready to a certain degree, but the operators aren’t. They need to get out of the way!
I would love to have similar specs in a Nokia.
I would welcome 24 mm thick phones if it means having ultra high end features like WVGA screens, cameras with optical zoom + xenon flash and most importantly of all, big batteries.
Unfortunately, phone makers think westerners are scared of thick devices. Its all the Razr’s fault.
Hey Stefen, nice post, as usual!
Did you take a look at the japanese NTT DoCoMo’s booth at the 3GSM/MWC? There were a lot of features only available (of course) in Japan, and it’s absolutely incredible what these crazy jap’s are able to do with their single phone!!
Not only interactive mobile TV (it’s a different standard than DVB-H, btw), but also features such as leaving your phone in a kind of craddle connected every night so that it can download all the new music and episodes from tv series you are subscribed to, and embedded technologies that have been working there for some time already, such as the ability to pay in a shop with your phone, or to open a locked door sliding the phone through a magnetic band or something similar.
So, indeed I was trying to justify that all those jap phones, are really really tied with their technology and with their sense of styling (most of them are clamshells, inmense screen and resolution…), and, as such, I don’t think they could be, in first place, released in Europe, as it would be a nonsense to release a phone whose technology is like 50% non usable here in Europe.
My opinion is that, as with almost any industrial sector that they produce, japanese companies can afford to work for two markets: THEIR OWN, and then the rest of the world. Don’t know about you guys, but I can’t think of another economy in the entire world that is able to do such a thing. Japan is sure a land that goes beyond all expectations….
The problem is quite simple: The phones on NTTDocomo’s network work on an OS (MOAP) licensed and controlled by NTTDocomo. So NTT won’t allow to use this OS outside their own network, and the phones are geared towards special mobile sites (i-mode and the like).
The Japanese market is completely different. It is controlled by the operators (NTT, Softbank) and the phones show the operator brands, not the manufacturer brands.
Hardware-wise the Japanese companies are not that different, except for the clamshell formfactor. Samsung offers the S60 (open, native extensible OS!) powered G810 with 5Mpixel cam and optical zoom. N96 has TV and 5Mpixel, only higher resolutions than QVGA have to be announced.
For connectivity, Europe is even more advanced. EU and Japan use the same W-CDMA technology at 2100Mhz (therefore roaming is possible), with the same HSPA technology. But: Only a really small amount of Japanese phones have Bluetooth or WIFI, so you have to rely on W-CDMA (read: Operator controlled market).
Japan is advanced in NFC services, but do not forget that in Europe there are 15+ countries and network operators that have to agree on one standard in contrast to Japan.
No, I don’t get it. If software is licensed by the operators, then why don’t they launch the devices with different software? Is that really the issue? As for the features that don’t make sense in Europe, ok, strip them of those.
The Samsung G810 has just been announced, it’s not yet available.
Why higher-res phones don’t make it outside Japan and, to some extent, Korea, is really beyond me.
I do agree completely with Stefan’s point and I’ve given this some thought myself. If other manufacturers that cater to the Japanese market simply aren’t present in Europe (or they seem not to be), why Sony Ericsson doesn’t re-release the phones they sell there to Europe, with different OS, tweaked features and all, I don’t get.
And last thing: if you asked the “users” if they’re ready for the N95 back in 2006, most average users would have responded that they don’t need such features in a phone. But the N95 has been sold in millions (tens of millions, maybe?) worldwide, so this theory is probably only good for the operators’ ears (who seem to think that users are also not ready for truly unlimited mobile data plans).
The Japanese think very differently about some things than the West does. NTT might not want to let others use their OS because of pride/exclusivity.
We see the option of having the most advanced phone, and it is the most important thing to us. The Japanese might see it as having the most exclusive network, and that’s what they like (regardless of who is on it, as long as they are profitable).
Here we are posting about it, begging for it almost, and that only makes the Japanese carriers and customers happier (if exclusivity does indeed make them happy). I’m not Japanese, so I don’t know this as a fact, but I have had a little exposure to the Japanese mobile market, and I wouldn’t doubt that the exclusiveness had something to do with it.
I think the reason behind this that in japan Technology is really up to the mark and very update then the other countries and one an other very important and main reason is that they think differently from other world there really expert in Technology also other then mobile……i think this is the main reason or may be language problem or other hurdles